From the 1990s onward, a variety of application programs applicable to the Internet have emerged, driving commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) to grow at a fast pace and provide all kinds of value-added services. Nowadays, the aspects of web-based services are highly diversified and include such applications as World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail (e-mail), file transfer via File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Bulletin Board System (BBS), and remote terminal emulation (e.g., Telnet), to name only a few. These Internet applications have penetrated out daily life and even influenced enterprise operation modes.
The Internet has developed so fast and brought convenience to so many, thanks to the invention of “web browsers”. A “web browser” is a software application for displaying the files (e.g., text, images, and other information) in web servers or file systems on the Internet and enabling a user's terminal device (e.g., a computer) to interact with the files, so that the user's terminal device can connect to other websites through the files (e.g., via hyperlinks) or show all sorts of information for easy browsing. Some notable examples of currently available web browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera. In order to provide convenience of use and prevent the influence of using different operating systems (e.g., Windows, Mac, UNIX), most of the web browsers, despite their different functions, support some common networking protocols like HTTP and HTTPS, as well as a good number of markup languages (e.g., HTML, XHTML, XML), dynamic scripting languages (e.g., JavaScript, JScript), or image file formats (e.g., GIF, PNG, JPEG). Presently, it is almost a standard procedure to install a web browser in any terminal device.
The images presented by a web browser—be they text, pictures, or videos—make it possible for the user to rapidly obtain a large amount of new information from the Internet or even make friends. Therefore, with a view to securing a strong market share in the highly competitive web browser industry, web browser providers have spared no effort in designing easy-to-use operation interfaces; consequently, the toolbars of web browsers are having more and more powerful functions. In addition to the fundamental functions such as moving to the homepage, the previous page, and the next page and adding bookmarks, many more convenient toolbar functions were developed. For example, after installing specific toolbar programs, the user can easily link to other websites, open his or her own blog, or receive other people's newly published articles (e.g., RSS articles) while using the web browser. According to a survey report on the use of toolbars, conducted in May, 2009 by InsightXplorer, a market research consultancy based in Taipei, 80% of the Internet users interviewed have had the experience of installing toolbars, in which the most commonly used toolbars and their percentages are: the Yahoo! Kimo toolbar (36%), the Google toolbar (26.4%), and the MSN toolbar (15%). A further survey shows that the most common reasons for toolbar installation and their percentages are: “to facilitate search of information” (about 21.5%), “to facilitate linking to frequently used website services” (about 19.1%), and “installed along with an instant messenger software” (about 15.8%). A cross-analysis between the various reasons and the interviewees' ages reveals that Internet users aged 40 and above place more emphasis on the “to facilitate search of information” feature of toolbars, while those aged 19 and below would prefer toolbars “capable of translating web pages”. It can be known from the foregoing that Internet users of different ages have different toolbar requirements. However, the existing toolbars fail to meet the needs of different age groups and are disadvantageous in many ways. First of all, the function buttons of a conventional toolbar are always shown in the web browser after the toolbar is installed, thus not only giving the web browser a crowded appearance, but also making it difficult for the user to find the button to be used. Secondly, the user may form different use habits while using the Internet for different purposes (e.g., for work, pastime, or friend making), but it is difficult to add a new button to or delete an existing button from the toolbar to suit the user's practical needs. Last but not least, if the user wants to use the same toolbar while connecting to the Internet from different locations (e.g., from home, the user's office, an Internet café), the toolbar software must be installed in each of the terminal devices to be used, either directly from a compact disc or by downloading the installation program from the Internet; otherwise, the desired toolbar will not be shown in the web browser of each terminal device. Needless to say, the repeated installation of the toolbar program is very inconvenient.
Given the heated competition in the Internet industry, it is critical for the related companies to provide toolbars which are more convenient in use, as a means to fostering users' use habit of the Internet and thereby effectively expanding company market shares. Hence, it is an important issue for the Internet-related companies to design a method which is applicable to the existing network systems and capable of inserting a toolbar into a web browser, wherein the method not only overcomes the drawbacks of the conventional toolbars but also facilitates the creation of a personalized operation interface.